I wrote this for a homeschool list

Again, in the early morning, the kids alternated between playing with each other and listening to Henry Huggins. They used their balloons from yesterday to help their toy rockets fly. At a later point, they played with the tub of sea animal toys. I overheard something about a hyper swordfish that was leaping out of the ocean. And then T exclaimed that his fish had become a fossil.

B and I talked about abbreviations, because he needed to rewind his tape and the button said "rew".

T couldn't really be bothered with much of Henry Huggins so he wanted to hear something else. We listened to some Laurie Berkener in the main room again. Then, he said he wanted to hear the train song. I wasn't sure which song he was talking about until he indicated that it was the one about the choo choo train coming back. He was talking about a Peggy Lee song on my old standards CD called, “Waiting for the Train to Come in”. He really loves that song because of the train theme and because she uses the word “melancholy” which is a T favorite for some reason. He sings some of the words when I play it.

Here is an excerpt from the the song:
“Waiting for the train to come in...
I'm waiting for my man to come home...
I've waited every hour of every live-long day.
Been so melancholy since he went away.
...
I'm waiting by the depot at the railroad track,
waiting for the choo-choo train to bring him back.”

I love jazz and old standards, so we often listen to that sort of music. Sometimes, we try to guess which instruments are playing. Actually, we went to a short jazz concert this summer that was part of a children's concert series. T is much more interested in that sort of thing than B is. I usually have to bring coloring books for B.

They discovered a box of kids' books, since we still haven't completely unpacked. B tried to read, “Dinosaur Roar!” to T. Then, he looked at the “Make It” book that was previously mentioned. He has plans to make a skull, but he's having a hard time finding his scissors. He uses them so much that I'm always surprised that he can't find them.

After finding the scissors, B set to work to try to make a 3D paper skull. He tried in the past but didn't finish it. T tried the skull but then gave up and worked on paper airplanes instead. T's a perfectionist, however, so he sat with a paper airplane book and complained that his airplane didn't “look right”. In the end, he made a crumpled looking traditional paper airplane but was very pleased to find that he could do a “loop uh loop” with it. So it all ended well.

We then sat and read some books together. I read part of the RS4K Bio I chapter on how protists eat. We had read this about a month ago, but B wanted me to read it again. We looked at the paramecium, which is one of his favorites. He said, “That's the food vacuole.” “How do you know that's what it's called?”, I asked. I don't think he would remember it from the one time I read it last month (or maybe he would, I don't know). He proudly said, “I read it! See! I can read!”

It's funny to me that he can read big words when they relate to something he's interested in, but if I asked him to read a page in a picture book, he'd stumble over words like “was”; he gets tired and frustrated. He simply doesn't have the repetition down to make it easier for him. If I catch him off-guard and ask, "What does that word say?" and it relates to science, he can often read it effortlessly. I'm considering asking him if he'd be open to doing (gasp) flashcards of common words. I never ever thought I'd use flashcards, but if he's open to it, it might help him so that he doesn't have to sound out every word he sees. I thought it might boost his confidence a bit too. We'll see what he says.

So we read the protist chapter, with B recalling how the paramecium digests. Then, we read about amebas, podophyra and didinium. T sat next to us, warbling about how the cell would eat another cell and split into two, followed by, “I saw that on the Zula Katrol!!” The Zula Patrol is a cute, simple science cartoon on PBS that they love. B was very interested in the didinium, because T's nickname for him is “Didi”. He decided that he liked Didinium and we had to find images of it on the Internet. I must admit that the microscopic images of Didinium and the poor paramecium (its prey) were very cool. We talked about what “predatory” meant.

We then read T's choice, “I love trains!” by Philemon Sturges. Both kids read some of the words, with T reciting from memory. B's next choice was “The DK Dinosaur Encyclopedia”. We only read a few pages, because T was getting restless. We read about sauropods and then T Rex. B is vegetarian and normally he gets annoyed by the carnivorous animals but he's been warming up to T Rex. We talked about how scientists can't agree if T Rex hunted or scavenged. T Rex apparently had 57 teeth! B said, “I only have 12 teeth up top. How much are two 12s?” “24”, I replied. We worked out that T Rex had almost twice as many teeth as a grown human. There was a funny moment when he pointed to the drawing of T Rex standing over a disgusting looking carcass and said, “That's disgusting!” “What is?”, I asked, wondering which gruesome detail he was referring to. B replied, “Look! He's standing in it! Ugh.”

T's next choice was “The Night Pirates” by Peter Harris. If you have a little girl, you might particularly appreciate this picture book. Here is an excerpt:
“Pirates!
Rough, tough little girl pirates.
With their own pirate ship.
...
But what about Tom?
Could he join the crew?
'Please let me aboard!
Can I come too?'
And did the girl captain say,
'Certainly not!
You're only a boy!'
Oh no, not at all!
Instead she roared,
'Welcome Aboard!'”

B's next choice was a human body encyclopedia from SIL. It's a cartoon book designed for small children, so it's not as detailed as his DK book. But it has lots of flaps with interesting trivia, which makes it fun in a different kind of way altogether. We read lots of interesting little bits of information about joints, reflexes (what are they and where do they come from?), ligaments, capillaries, and the brain. The brain is a B favorite. We learned that brain cells are called 'neurons'. We also learned a bit about how muscles work and all three of us identified our biceps and triceps when the book pointed them out.

At this point, I was a bit tired. I decided to iron and get ready. The kids started a human body puzzle but abandoned it at some point. Tired of jazz, I put on the classical mix channel. At one point, Khachaturian's Sabre Dance came on. If you've watched Bugs Bunny, you'd know this piece. It's always the manic chase song. One day as I was returning from an errand, I discovered that dh put this piece on and led the kids through the house in crazy running style. He'd die if he knew I just wrote that. So the kids came out of their room and did a mini-run to the song, with B doing what looked like a 6 year old's impression of the stereotypical Russian dancing you see in ballet.

They ate while I showered. Then, they showered and got ready. It was 11:15. I put on the Magic SchoolBus for them and now they're watching some cartoon about monster trucks.

I'm posting this now, because it got kind of long. There will be a part two later in the day. The big activity in part two is B's art class. I have a doctor's appt so dh will be taking both kids. I had a fun downtown trip planned around his art class before I made this appt. I'll probably take them downtown tomorrow to make up for it. If I do, I'll post pictures.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

This morning was a luxuriously lazy Monday morning. The kids played for several hours this morning while I puttered around and did stuff. I'm not sure what they were doing the whole time. But I know that at various points, they pretended to drive invisible cars, they turned a bedroom into “B's house”, they played trains and they started a puzzle. Later, while B listened to more Henry Huggins on tape, I read some books to T. We read “The Caboose Who Got Loose” by Bill Peet, which is a T favorite. He wanted to read some of the words so he basically recited some for me, in addition to adding his own embellishment. Then, we read two chapters of “Henry the Green Engine” from the original Rev. Awdry's Thomas the Tank Engine books. He wanted me to read the rest of the book but we really needed to get ready. I promised to read more later.

After getting ready and having lunch, we went to our chiropractor's, because she was hosting an annual “Patient Appreciation Day” to commemorate an important date in chiropractic history. Earlier in the month, the kids had created a flat paper spine from a kit she provided. She had those hanging on the wall. The kids got little baggies of jellybeans in exchange for the spine decorations. We ate some of the yummy food she put out. Then, we ran into someone that we used to have playdates with way back when B was only 2 years old! While we got caught up, her boys and my boys played in the chiropractor's toy room. They played so well and for so long that we exchanged phone numbers for a future playdate.

Our chiropractor is so good with kids. B has been interested in bones since he was 2 or 3. Our chiropractor has always let him handle the bones she has out, including a real human skull with wobbly teeth. She answers his questions. He loves going to her office. It's a way of feeding his interest. And she has a small lending library. Today, we borrowed a “Make it: Human Body” book that we had previously borrowed. We have plans to attempt the cell model in the book. I think we can do a scaled down version out of cardboard.

We left with balloons and jellybeans. T opened his jellybean bag in the car, which I wasn't expecting. I didn't want them to eat a ton of them at once, because all the sugar and food coloring at once wouldn't be so good for them. I asked him how many he ate and he replied, “One.” I told him he could have three more. B said, “Then, I can have four.” T then determined that he could only have two more. B corrected him and told him he could have three, because he had only eaten one and 1+3 is 4. Everyone seemed happy.

B suggested we go to our old favorite coffee shop afterwards, which is right down the street. While I drank coffee, the kids played with the all-in-one game set. They played their own version of Chinese Checkers and then played cards. They had an interesting “Go Fish” game going on with easier rules. If you guess what the other person is holding, that person has to put their card down and get another from the pack. I'm not sure how one wins. Then, they examined the dice and we looked at the different ways that dice can be labeled and used. They were intrigued by a die that had card suits and such printed on the sides.

By the time we got home, it was 230. I put on TV and the kids watched a new reading show called, “Super Why.”

And that's where we are right now. I started tidying up the art cabinet, which is completely trashed. I am going to try to finish that while they watch a few shows. If I do it at another time, they will be inspired to start doing art all at once and then it defeats the purpose of the tidying. Even though we've been in the apartment for a month, we still have some things in boxes, including extra art supplies. I have to get this sorted out or we're all going to be buried in paper cuttings!

Later:
Right now, dh is reading bedtime stories to them. T chose Eric Carle's "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?" Dh and B are about half-way through Paddington Bear. That's going to be the next audio book I try to grab.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

We're having a quiet morning. B is already holed up in his room listening to Henry Huggins on tape. Earlier, he was making a "word game" that would help people make words. He had carefully drawn and cut out several letters of the alphabet before moving on. T is listening to Laurie Berkener's "Victor Vito". My kids are really early risers, btw. I'm slowly (veerrrry slowly) waking up here with a cup of hot tea. The weather's supposed to be cooler today so we need to get out somewhere. I'm not sure what we'll do yet.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

Today, we had planned to go to the train museum. T had been asking to go for months but it's been so incredibly hot and most of the train stuff is outside, so we had been delaying it. The kids were so excited to find that we were going.

Early in the morning, the kids colored a cardboard egg carton that B rescued from the recycling bin. I cut it in half for them so they could both make 'volcanoes'. Later, while we got ready, T played with his train set and B listened to the conclusion of the audio book, "A Cricket in Times Square". While I was in the bathroom, I heard B sobbing. It didn't sound like he was hurt, but he was absolutely sobbing. I could hear dh talking to him. Bewildered, I stepped out of the bathroom to see what was going on. Dh was hugging B, with tears streaming down B's face. "It's the ending of 'A Cricket in Times Square'.", said dh, "It's very sad." "What happens??", I asked. "The cricket goes back to Connecticut.", said dh. Bewildered pause on my part. "It's a very long, drawn-out good-bye.", explained dh. Poor B. I had never seen him cry over a book before. I hugged him and told him that books made me cry sometimes too. "Which ones?", he asked. I remembered how incredibly affected I was by Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "100 Years of Solitude". As it involves murder and incest, I decide not to share that one.

Everyone picked up and got ready so we went on the long drive to the big Train Museum. It was 2.5 hours in one direction. We listened to Eric Idle narrate, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" on the drive. I enjoyed it as much as B did. Dh and I exchanged giggles a few times. We're such kids on the inside at times.

T started getting impatient and loud as we got very close to the end of our journey. In an effort to appease him, I asked him to help me find exit 60. I showed him where the numbers were and showed how we were at 55. Before doing this, he kept insisting that if he counted to 10, for example, that it would be 10 miles and we should be there already. This seemed to keep him busy while we finished our long journey.

The Train Museum was as good as we remembered it. We had a whirlwind tour full of energy and excitement. While walking by the tracks, I recalled a train episode of "Dirty Jobs" I recently saw. "Hey B.", I said, "Those stones are called 'ballast'." "What kind of stones are they? Igneous or sedimentary?", he asked. B likes geology and we've read a fantastic "Let's Read and Find Out Science" book about it. "Granite, I guess.", replied dh. "So it's igneous.", I added. "Oh.", he said, seeming satisfied. Then, "Rrrr! I'm an airplane!", he shouted and ran excitedly down the path. Both kids were so incredibly excited. We definitely have to come back again this winter.

On the drive back, T interrupted our audio book with his own personal rendition of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train". He was loud and refused to tone it down a bit so we could still hear the audio book. Then, he promptly passed out. We put him straight to bed when we got home, which is unusual. He didn't have a good night of sleep last night, however, so that affected him. B started listening to Beverly Cleary's "Henry and the Paper Route" while dh put T to bed. Having only recently discovered full-length audio books at the library, he's really into them right now. MIL is getting him all the Roald Dahl audio books with her teacher's discount. B is going to be so excited!

I wrote this for a homeschool list

Spotlight Sept 16-22

What We Do...

I'm a SAHM to two boys, ages 6 and 3. B is 6 and T will be 4 next month. I refer to our style of homeschooling as “quasi unschooling”. I think it's unschooling, but I get a little confused by the discussions of the definition so I feel most comfortable describing us this way. We quasi unschool, mainly because my kids are very self-motivated, busy people and they resist instruction; on some days, I may only see them in passing for much of the day. They seem to thrive in this environment, particularly my oldest so this is what we do. I'm not married to the philosophy; it's more of a case of “this works for us right now”. It will be interesting to see how things evolve as time goes by. Right now, we follow up on the kids' interests, share interests, and go to interesting places. Sometimes, B takes a class in something that interests him, but as we are all introverts, we tend to be homebodies.

Our Journey to Homeschooling...

Dh and I approached the notion of homeschooling when our oldest son was a toddler. B was developing asynchronously, which means that he was advanced in some areas and behind in others. All children develop asynchronously to some extent, but this appeared to be out of the norm. At the time, we didn't feel his academic and emotional needs would be met in school. At the same time, we both thought that homeschooling was an absolutely outrageous idea. Still, I felt like my back was up against a wall just dealing with the toddler issues. I read, “Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense” by David Guterson. It was such a convincing read that I felt much better and I was able to bring my husband on board as well. Since then, our reasons for homeschooling have broadened a great deal, with the addition of “We just enjoy it!”

I started reading about unschooling when B was a preschooler, I guess. I had my doubts at the time, but it seemed to be the only respectful way of approaching his education. Of course, he was very little; I think I was guilty of overthinking homeschooling before he was even school-aged. At any rate, here we are. It still works for us right now and we're all very happy. Even dh, who was the most suspicious of unschooling, is very supportive of what we do.

My Kids and their Interests...

B is 6. His main loves are construction, art and science. Ever since he was a toddler, he was the kind of kid that had to be making something all the time. I somewhat keep on top of his creations by using a digital camera and keeping a family webpage, in addition to labeling and saving the favorites. But at the height of his drawing phase, I had to go through about 100 drawings a week for archiving/or/recycling! It's hard to keep on top of. Right now, he's in a paper construction phase. He's made things from a paper campfire with reloadable marshmallow sticks to flat human anatomy assemblies out of construction paper and scotch tape. I have a pile that I need to go through in my room. I feel happy that he can spend hours a day doing this, alone, with no constraints; this is as important to his development, IMO, as any subject that would be taught in First Grade.

He loves any kind of science, so most of the things that would be called “academic” in our homeschooling fall into the realm of science. Since he is so hard to keep up with in science, I started buying science curriculum as a form of strewing. We read the books when he wants to, in whatever order he wants to, for as long as he wants to. I have no academic expectations or learning objectives. It's a way of feeding his interests. He is very good at letting me know when he's disinterested. Subsequently, we may not touch the curriculum books for 2 months or we may blow through chapters in one week. Last year, we used Noeo Chemistry I. This year, we're using Real Science 4 Kids Biology I, with most of his interest being focused on cells. He is also very into human anatomy right now. He doesn't really read independently (just individual words) but he pores over his DK Visual Encyclopedias on human anatomy and skeletons; he's taught me some things!

And he also loves to play, of course. He plays for most of the day. He's very introverted, like the rest of our family, so he is really happy to play at home for most of the time. Sometimes, it can be a challenge just to convince the kids to leave the house! Oh, and he also loves books. He loves being read to and he is addicted to audio books right now. As mentioned, he doesn't really read independently yet and we're not sure what he can read, due to him being a private person. He's basically been teaching himself to read, with very minimal help. And he loves geography, dinosaurs, evolution, insects, big architectural landmarks (e.g. Leaning Tower of Pisa), volcanoes...what have I left out?

T will be 4 at the end of next month, although he's been insisting he's 5 since he was 1. He's like our family entertainer. He's very charming and funny, although he is shy in groups of people. He really loves music, singing, dancing, soccer and cooking. He has a thing for musical instruments, so I keep my eye out for kids' concerts in our city. He likes to make up stories and plays; sometimes we are conscripted into his little plays. He also loves trains, books and books about trains. ;-) He is also frequently interested in what interests B. He thinks that B is the best brother a guy could have, so he follows him around for most of the day. B is usually very patient with him and the two, minus the fighting, are best friends.

Our favorite places to go are the park, the library, the Art Museum, Science Museums, the Children's Museum, the Automotive Museum (that's dh's thing, however) the zoo, our new friends' house, etc. Dh shares a lot of scientific and mechanical interests with the kids, in addition to geography. I share an interest in art, biology and geography. I run and compete in races, which unintentionally led to both kids having an interest in racing. So, sometimes, I look out for shorter races for them, while trying to make sure they don't overdo it with their young bodies.

As a family, we love to travel. We joke that dh's family has a travel gene, as they get around quite a lot. I'm American but dh is British. We feel appreciative that we have the opportunity to visit the UK every year or two. My Ils love visiting the U.S. too, so we often meet up in different places (the last place was Washington D.C.). Now that the kids are older, out of diapers and easier to take around, I would really like to travel to parts of Europe when we visit the UK. I'd like to take advantage of our homeschool lifestyle to travel at off-peak times. I see travel as being a key resource in our homeschooling lifestyle.

Where We Are...
We've been living in the suburbs, but we are building a house in a rural area very close by. We will have 4 acres in a planned neighborhood where the minimum acreage is roughly 4 acres. We'll still be 5 minutes from the highway, which puts us about 30 minutes from the county seat that we call “the city”. I'm so excited, but I'm a little nervous too.

Right now, we're living in an apartment while we build our house, which is a bit of a transition for us. When we lived in our old house, the kids would play outside in the fenced backyard by themselves for hours. Now, we no longer have that luxury so I'm trying to compensate by getting them out more. Much of our good stuff is in storage. Some previously proposed activities have to be postponed due to the mess it would make in our rented apartment, space considerations, etc. We're looking forward to the new house, where I hope to eventually have a homeschool workshop/lab/messy room in the basement and where we will immediately have use of a deep laundry room sink and counter space.

B spends a lot of time poring over his DK Eyewitness Visual Dictionary of the Human Body. I'm not sure if he's reading it or just looking at the pictures. I'm not sure what he can read, to be honest, because he's a bit secretive about it and he hates performing. All I know is that he knows a lot about the human body and he never asks me to read this book to him.

So I offered to read it to him the other day and he accepted. At his request, I read the following pages: Muscles 1, Muscles 2, Hands, Feet, Nose-Mouth-and-Throat, Urinary System, and Reproductive System. I enjoyed reading to him and chatting with him, but it's exhausting, because he understands it the first time it's read and then he wants more detail, followed by more detail, , more detail...I felt drained by the end.

Wrt muscles, the book addressed skeletal muscles, smooth muscles and cardiac muscles. In the illustration, B was convinced that the whitish looking muscles were the skeletal muscles, but all the muscles shown were skeletal. I'm not sure what the white indicates. We talked about how the smooth muscles are the ones around the organs that make them function, e.g. muscles that move food through the intestines. He wants to know if the tongue is a skeletal muscle or a smooth muscle, because it's not really near any organs, but it moves food down the throat. I have no earthly idea, but I plan on finding out. My sister is really good at this sort of thing, so I should probably call her.

In the nose-mouth-throat page, we talked about how taste buds work and how the tongue facilitates that process. He chatted about how the nose, mouth and throat are connected. He was very chatty throughout the reading of the book.

On the urinary system page, he basically showed me how the kidneys connect to the bladder; he apparently knows that the red arteries carry blood in and the blue veins take it away. He showed me the progression through the ureters (he didn't know the term) and how it goes through the uretha, etc. I admit that I really didn't know all of that; it's not anything that I've ever paid much attention to. He knew more about how kidneys worked that I did, tbh. I then had a flashback of all the anatomy art that he's done in the past month (from memory, mind you) and I realized that the stuff he's been making has been very accurate. When he made his massive paper human body, he had attached the kidneys to the bladder by strips of black paper; those strips are essentially the ureters.

He drew intestines the other day with a rectangular blob protruding from them on one side. “What's that?”, I asked him, to which he replied,”It's the organ we don't use anymore, the grass-eating organ.” “The appendix, B?”, I asked. “Yes.”, he confirmed. I thought it was cute that he drew it how he imagined it might look. Thinking back on this, I hastily turned to the digestive system page and saw what he had drawn was accurate, even down to the side of the intestines that it's on. So I asked him what that blob was and he gave me the same answer. “How do you know that's the appendix, B?”, I asked. “I don't know.”, he said, “It just looks like it should be.” Of course, right next to it is the label “appendix” so perhaps he is reading it and just not realizing that he is reading it. He knows a lot of anatomy stuff that neither dh nor I recall reading to him.

Looking at the bladder, he said, “That's a boy's bladder.” I asked him how he knew that (it did say “male bladder”) and he said, “Because it's not squished. Girls' bladders are always squished because babies grow on top of them.” Then, he said, “Oh! Now I know why there's a hole in the bottom of the pelvis! It's because the bladder lies there.” It was a very enlightening book discussion. Sometimes, I watch him playing and I feel slightly insecure, because we don't do school at home. But then a discussion like this shows me that he really has been working on something on his own and he is learning an incredible amount about what interests him.

We had a talk about where babies come from, based on our chat about the reproductive system page. I refrained from giving him the mechanical details, because he is simply not ready for it. But we talked about how conception occurs on the inside; I'm surprised he didn't ask him how sperm get from point A to point B. He was more interested in how the cells combine and how the ball of cells grows. Based on his keen interest in this, I borrowed a book from the library, “Being Born” by Sheila Kitzinger. Again, I skipped over the outward mechanical details during conception. But we read everything else to the end and we looked at all the pictures. The photography in the book by Leonard Nilson is phenomenal. Both kids enjoyed the book.

On the day that I got that book from the library, I also picked up one that I saw: the DK Eyewitness Visual Dictionary of the Skeleton. I wish I had found this book years earlier, although parts of it would have probably freaked B out. But it was the perfect B book. I think I'm going to have to buy it. It has photographs of skeletons of tons of animals: penguins, turtles, frogs, elephants....He really loved the book and he's been taking in the car. everywhere we go.

I haven't really read it to him, but I pointed a few things out. I talked about endoskeletons vs exoskeletons. He said that he would rather use the word “vertebrate” for something with an endoskeleton. He's funny like that. If I say it once, as long as it's in his area of interest, he remembers it and that's it. He excitedly pointed out that some animal at the Science Center had an “exoskeleton”. He's good with those terms now.

The book also talks about a third type of skeleton that worms have. I'm a bit lost on it. I automatically think of skeletons being crunchy things. The book defines a skeleton as simply the structure that gives an organism its shape and protects the insides. So, it argues that leaves have skeletons. I'm not really sold on that. I think it dilutes things a bit. But apparently worms have some sort of inner structure that is fluid filled and the book is calling it a skeleton. I had to throughly explain that to B, because he thought that worms had bones, basically.

At the library, T picked out a Magic Schoolbus book and B picked out a picture book about rockets. I read the rocket book to them when we got home. It had great illustrations. I asked B to help me read the last word in each sentence. I don't know why I did that; it annoyed him a little. I was struck that he read words like “built” effortlessly. He hasn't been taught phonics. He turns from instruction. He's just figured it out somehow. At the same time, I can tell that it's work for him every time he sees a word. He can read quite a lot, but he has not put the practice in that would make these words familiar each time he sees them. Therefore, he's not fluent; he has to work each word every time. I'm sure that at some point, he'll feel motivated to do it. He loves books so much.

He listened to “Henry Huggins and the Paper Route” on tape the other day. It took him 3 consecutive hours of laying in the floor to get through it. Actually, I did make him stop it for 15 minutes so we could have lunch; he complained about that. He wanted to listen to the whole thing again the next day. That's when we headed out to the library and I picked up some more audio books for him: Henry Huggins (the original) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He keeps asking me to listen to them, but we've been so busy this weekend. I'm thinking about getting him his own small CD player. I could give him my old personal CD player, but it skips if you don't hold it exactly level. He needs something, but then T would probably be into it.

I meant to say that when we read the rocket picture book, T also wanted to read the words at the ends of sentences. I figured we'd humor him. Imagine my surprise when he sounded out “dahy” or “die” for the word “day”. He didn't sound any others out, but we think it's starting to click for him. The other day at the park, he was staring at a sign and he said, “That says 'exit'.” I also meant to say that my curiosity got the best of me and I had asked him to help me write some words a week ago. This was after the joking/chicken exchange. I said the words slowly and helped him sound them out. He wrote them. For “joking”, T wrote “jokk”. He wrote “ht” for “hat” and “bid” for “bed”.

I think that's everything we've done in this past week. Tomorrow, we meet up with friends for the day.

I am really enjoying doing biology with my son. It’s one of those feel-good homeschool moments when it feels so incredibly enjoyable and relaxing. I guess I feel that way, because I also like biology. I bought “Real Science 4 Kids Biology Level I” for him, because I know that he is passionate about science. He had recent interest in cells, in addition to all of his human anatomy stuff that he’s into. I made a guess that the RS4K stuff would go over really well with him, as long as we treated it like a read-aloud and as long as we did it completely on his terms. I figured we would skip around however he wanted to and we would only do it when he genuinely felt like it.

I started off reading about taxonomy. We had already spoken about the 5 kingdoms prior to getting the curriculum. I think he easily knows plants, animals and bacteria. Fungi is a hard one for him to wrap his head around. We’ve been talking about protists a lot just now so I’m thinking he might be able to keep them straight from bacteria. The kids watched a Zula Patrol episode about paramecium and amoebas so there was a general familiarity with protists and there was a keen interest in them.

He wasn’t too interested in taxonomy, rather he wanted to jump straight into cells. This is where I have to fight the urge to strictly stick to the chapter sequence; some weird schoolish part of me tries to overcome the unschooling part of me and then it’s just not fun for anyone; it just becomes tedious and stressful. So, I let it go, of course.

He was done with the reading about classification, but immediately asked me to write “This is a cell.” so he could copy it. He then sat down and drew an animal cell based on the picture in the book. I was impressed with his level of detail. All he really wants to do are cells and he’s so interested in it, which is fantastic. This is what it should be about: love of learning. If he wants me to, I’ll read whatever he wants me to read about cells. And he really wants to make one. He had borrowed a “make it” anatomy book from our chiropractor and he had his heart set on making the cell in the book. They used a lot of hard foam. I believe we can make the same 3D cell from cardboard and we have a lot of cardboard left from the move.

This morning, he asked where the new microscope slides were. I had purchased some for him, based on what he wanted. Most of them were splices of human organs. I did buy one of paramecium splitting; he really wanted that one. I sat down with the kids and showed them which setting was best to view the slides on. Most worked well at 600x but a few really needed 900x. Unfortunately, since this is a toy microscope, 900x doesn’t work so well because the magnification gets shaky; you have to sort of hold the platform in place.

I showed him that the bolded word on top of the slide’s label would indicate what he was looking at. I was given a rare glimpse into his reading ability. He was able to read “kidney, stomach, frog blood” and others. He spends a lot of time poring over his kids’ anatomy encyclopedia; now, we’re starting to think he’s actually reading some of it. I had to read “cerebellum” for him, but then he excitedly gushed that it was the part of the brain that connects to the brain stem. This is where I think he must be reading some part of the anatomy book, because I didn’t know that bit of info.

I think he would like me to buy more slides for him. They’re a bit expensive, but it’s one of those things that are worth it. We really need a real microscope at some point rather than this little toy. I didn’t want to make the expenditure without seeing how much long-term interest was there and assessing how careful they would be. I think we’re ready for a real microscope, to be honest. The kid in me would really like a real microscope for my own pleasure; I spent hours with my toy microscope when I was a kid.

I think he was the most excited at the paramecium slide, especially as they were splitting. I had been a bit disappointed with it, because I couldn’t see all the inner parts or the cilia. He was still happy. We pulled out the RS4K text and flipped to the chapter on protists. I read about how paramecium catch food and digest it. He just soaked it up like a sponge. He also thought that paramecium were funny. I still wish we could see more; I’ll have to see if I can find a magnified picture on the Internet. We can only see a dark circle, which I guess is the nucleus. According to the RS4K book, all cells have a nucleus except for bacteria (prokaryotic cells).

Anyway, it was just one of those feel-good homeschooling moments when the parent and child are really sharing something that they both enjoy. I feel this way when the three of us go to art museum too. I think dh feels this way whenever they talk about machines or one of the other sciences. I can’t believe dh hates biology. He is really enthusiastic about physics, chemistry and things like that, but he finds biology to be incredibly tedious. I’m the opposite; biology is the only kind of science that I’ve ever really loved. I could learn about this stuff with B all day.

I know there have been posts on the boards about people feeling like their interactions with their child are incredibly monotonous. I wonder if they’ll change their mind as their child grows older or when they find a shared interest. I could never sit in the floor and play cars or something; that is tedious to me and I do not consider myself to be a child playmate. But I absolutely love talking to my kids…I love these conversations we have when they teach me things and I teach them things and we learn stuff together. I really enjoy their companionship. I love the visits to the coffee shop, especially if I can have 1:1 time with either child. I love the simple conversations, the intellectual conversations, the moments of mutual silence when we’re just being. I love traveling with them. I love when we teach each other. I think I just love the companionship and getting to know them as people. I hope they get to know me as a person too. I feel like I’m just now getting to know my own mother as a person outside of the mother role; I wish I had made this discovery sooner.